Edit: this is a massively significant moment for me. Have been building my FB for close to two years now I closed it out with a 27% return. While I'm still massively bullish on the company, I can't stomach the recent bouts of volatility. I need to be more risk-off.

I laughed my ass off when Mark answered the analyst's question on whether he was pleased with initial Oculus sales. He said something along the lines of "Yes I'm happy. I don't show much joy, but I'm happy," and left an awkward two second pause before apologizing, chuckling, and elaborating further.

In all seriousness, the major catalyst that pushed me to spontaneously sell my position was when one of the executives (I think it was their CFO) had said they were going to face tough comps in 2016 due to their recent strings of massive outperformance. My mind immediately flashed to AAPL and I thought the shares were going to drop somewhat after that comment. Thankfully they didn't and continued to chug along, popping another 3-4% after what I can only assume was lower than expected CapEx guidance for 2016.

I'm just rambling at this point but goddamn I needed this relief. Thank you, based Zuckerberg and Sandberg.

I've never shorted a stock before -- how does the position appear on your account? Does it show up as a regular long position in terms of share ownership, except you're taking delight in seeing it red?

Also can one have a net neutral position on a stock where you're equal amounts short and long at the same time?

I've never shorted a stock before -- how does the position appear on your account? Does it show up as a regular long position in terms of share ownership, except you're taking delight in seeing it red?

Also can one have a net neutral position on a stock where you're equal amounts short and long at the same time?

No it doesn't show up as a long position. It shows up short (gain/loss is flipped) but you can still take delight in seeing it in the red. Might vary across brokerage firms.

I've never shorted a stock before -- how does the position appear on your account? Does it show up as a regular long position in terms of share ownership, except you're taking delight in seeing it red?

Also can one have a net neutral position on a stock where you're equal amounts short and long at the same time?

Depends on your brokerage or OMS. Generally you will own -xxx shares with - signifying short.

Cost of borrow or hard to borrow will be a hurdle and might not be transparent across different firms and sometimes you do need to call their desk for info if you are on retail platform.

Cost of borrow for some stocks are sky high, e.g., TSLA, SQ.

No you can't be short XYZ and long XYZ at the same time. You can however have derivative contracts that achieve the same goal. For example, in asset rotation strat, good tax management strat won't sell SPY to rotate out but instead sell futures against the position to stay net neutral.

I need to do this - beyond the managed stuff, I have a decent amount of money sitting around. Debating handing it over to the firm (who won't do anything exotic, will mitigate the downside and focus solely on the long term) or splitting it up into somethings I would do and they would do.

I'd almost certainly never bet against a company. I did a covered call once, never amounted to anything. I'd be willing to consider broader things including short term fixed investments.

Also, to GF-dawg's thing about AMZN. I'm bullish on them as well. It's just how much of it is built-in. My friend's at MSFT and GOOG are very scared of their cloud space. My startup uses their cloud services which are brilliantly scalable.

I bought about 2000 bucks of them at 8 some odd after my first internship in undergrad (a decent amount of money for an 18 year old) and panicked and sold when they hit 6 some odd bucks around 9/11. I bought them because I love reading books and thought they were good at that. Silly me.

I need to do this - beyond the managed stuff, I have a decent amount of money sitting around. Debating handing it over to the firm (who won't do anything exotic, will mitigate the downside and focus solely on the long term) or splitting it up into somethings I would do and they would do.

I'd almost certainly never bet against a company. I did a covered call once, never amounted to anything. I'd be willing to consider broader things including short term fixed investments.

Also, to GF-dawg's thing about AMZN. I'm bullish on them as well. It's just how much of it is built-in. My friend's at MSFT and GOOG are very scared of their cloud space. My startup uses their cloud services which are brilliantly scalable.

I bought about 2000 bucks of them at 8 some odd after my first internship in undergrad (a decent amount of money for an 18 year old) and panicked and sold when they hit 6 some odd bucks around 9/11. I bought them because I love reading books and thought they were good at that. Silly me.

People at Msft are scared of aws? Azure revenue will prop up Msft tonight in after hours trading when it beats earnings. Looking for a good 5-6 percent price appreciation hopefully.